Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://gijn.org/category/news/)
The murder of Slovakian journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kušnírová, both 27, have sparked protests since the killings on February 25. On Friday, tens of thousands gathered at the Slovak National Uprising Square in Bratislava to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government and a thorough investigation of Kuciak’s death. Feature image by Tomáš Benedikovič.
Myanmar’s new regime leaders escalated their forceful crackdown on nationwide protests with sweeping restrictions on the media, severely curtailing independent journalism in particular, and opening the way for serious environmental crimes.
“There certainly appears to be a worrying trend around the world where powerful companies or public officials attempt to censor public participation on matters of public interest through lawsuits, for instance in the law of defamation,” explained Dario Milo, a South Africa-based attorney who specializes in communication law and is a member of the European Union’s Expert Group on SLAPPs.
A collaborative project brought together 40 women journalists from 30 states across India to tell the stories they had uncovered while investigating the impact of COVID-19. But their coming together turned into a much broader conversation about the challenges of their work and lives.
When Giacomo Bologna was working on his first freelance story, he reached out to the Fund for Investigative Journalism for help. With a grant to cover his gas mileage, the cost of copying records, and his time, Bologna set up shop in a small room on the third floor of a courthouse in Mississippi and started reviewing paper files to trace a large nonprofit hospital’s practice of aggressively pursuing payment from thousands of poor patients.
Investigating the environment in developing countries can be a particularly dangerous game – far more so in the Global South than in North America and Europe. Journalists in the developing world are prime targets for powerful political and economic interests, operate in a hostile climate, and often lose their lives far from the Western media spotlight.
For digital-first news outlets in Latin America, lessons learned from reader-funding experiments are being transformed into highly tailored membership programs that offer a chance at a more sustainable future. Independent, mission-driven or subject-specific news sites, in particular, are leading the way, converting close relationships with audiences into funding through editorially-linked, labor-intensive initiatives.
Afghan journalist Zahra Joya, 28, is not hopeful of a bright future for women journalists in her country. In November 2020, she used her personal savings to recruit five women journalists and start Rukhshana Media. They wanted to go around the country and tell the stories of maternal mortality, domestic violence and women’s reproductive health. Since then, they have published stories on the taboo of menstruation, child marriage, street harassment, gender discrimination and what it means to live as a survivor of rape.
How did a team of reporters across Asia investigate digital sex crimes, and what did they learn about interviewing victims of image-based abuse during their deep dive into this phenomenon? Sarah Karacs speaks to the team to find out how the collaboration worked, and what they learned about a phenomenon of growing concern worldwide.
Could news media use drones to better inform the public? To procure new data or do remote fact-checking with small unmanned aircraft? Could drones protect journalists, who have been targets for violence? Enthusiasm waxed. And — a decade later — waned.
In March 2020, environmental journalist Helena Carpio, leaned out of her window to see Caracas filled with smoke. Something was burning, but no one knew where and there was no official news on what was happening. She started to investigate, and the resulting project analyzed two decades of satellite data on hotspots to explore the when, where, and why of forest fires in Venezuela and across Latin America.
